


Dirk: Split

by laughablyunimportant



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Death, Decapitation, Dream Bubbles, Incest, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2018-06-04 18:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6668674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughablyunimportant/pseuds/laughablyunimportant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about the dream bubbles, tediously infinite as they are, is that, on very rare occasions, against all odds, you run into someone you actually want to talk to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dirk: Split

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ahmerst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahmerst/gifts).



> Could be Dirk/Dave or Dirk & Dave, depending on which way you want to look at it.
> 
> Originally written for Ahmerst, though I can't remember what prompted it.

"So, yeah," he said, taking the pink-clad girl's hand. "See you later." He turned to go, and you should let him, you should just let him go off and plunge into another bubble, drift from memory to memory until someone else snapped him out of it, but you just couldn't. As surprised as you were to find him, as much as you didn't want to talk to him, this guy who was your bro but _not_ , who was you, but _better_ , you couldn't let him go. Not without saying anything. You already had too many people you'd never get to talk to again, no need to add him to the list.

So when you shouted out "Wait!" it carried a surety that actually made him pause and look back at you. When you asked "You dead, or dreaming?" he only hesitated a moment before drifting back down to you, still clutching the girl's hand, face carefully blank.

"This isn't how it goes," he said, alighting on the ground, but still a head taller, damn him. "I don't have time for chit-chat. My friends need me."

You roll your shoulders, look up at the sky as the scenery around you begins to lose its sharp-edged reality. "I got time for both of us. So. You dead or dreaming?"

Things were blurring and running together, back into that murky in-between mist that seemed to be the norm for bubbles, when someone wasn't superimposing a memory on them. The only thing that stayed firm was the two of them, and the girl whose hand his not-bro wouldn't let go of. He looked around, at the world slowly being bleached of color, and then back to you, just the smallest pinch to his brow betraying his unease. "I'm not sure," he said.

You push off from the ground, just a little, to float up eye-level with him and sit on air, crossing your legs. He seems startled, and you smirk, because really, when else are you going to one-up any version of your Bro in the aerial maneuver department? 

"What's the last thing you remember?" You ask. You've been on the other end of things often enough that people toying with the uncertain just makes you second-hand angry. A dude deserves to know if he's alive or dead.

You're pretty sure his eyes are searching you, roving all around behind dark lenses while the rest of his face stays still. "This is a dream bubble," he says at last, "But not like it was the first time." You nod. "Knew it had to be one of your memories. I've never been here before, but alpha Dave must've been, since I got plugged in to fill his spot."

His muscles tighten when you say "Dave," cheek twitching just a little, like he's clenching his jaw too hard. Then it disappears, the deliberate smoothing-out of his features more noticeable than the expression was to begin with. "You dead or dreaming?" he asks, and you grin, the taut-lipped leering one dead 'rezi taught you that gives even the clown a run for his money. 

"Dead," you say. "Since way back when." He opens his mouth, and you just know he's going to say it, the same thing they all say, so you go on, running over his "I'm sorry" with "I have a feeling you are too."

He shifts, uncomfortable, before finally letting go of the girl's hand. She dissolves slowly, keeping that goofy smile to the end, and he floats up to join you, sitting cross-legged in the misty in-between, knees inches from yours.

"Yeah," he says. "I think you're right."

Silence stretches between you until you nudge his foot with yours, making his head jerk up a bit. "So?" you asked. "How'd it happen?"

He pressed his lips into a thin line. You gave him a slow smile, unfolding your legs and floating over to stretch out at his side. "Come on," you said. "You show me yours, and I'll show you mine."

He smiled, something hollow and humorless. "What are you," he said, "thirteen?"

You shrugged, floating around some more, inverting your perception of gravity for the hell of it, though the seeming fluctuation in laws of physics didn't seem to trip him up. "Well, yeah. Aren't you?"

His eyes went wide, actually wide behind his glasses. "Fifteen," is all he said, word short and clipped. Guess that's why he was so much taller than you.

"Look," you said, bracing one arm against nothingness to support your nonexistent weight. "Parading your dead form around for the other ghosts to see is basically a rite of passage in these parts. Can't let you proceed without paying the toll."

"No," he said, and you couldn't help it, you pushed him.

"Come on. It can't be that bad. I've seen some pretty bad shit in here, I can handle whatever horror story you're packing. Rose'd be on all about how it was cathartic or some shit. Juuhst holy hell no wait—" Shit. Shit shit shit shit _shit_. The grey mist around you took form, and suddenly, you were thrust into another memory, one where you had no role, trapped as an observer, unable to interfere as things ran their course.

It looked kind of like Rose's room, if Rose had been a little less guarded and a little more of a stereotypical six-year-old girl, with mad scientist thrown in the mix. The girl from before was there, this time with a hole ripped through her middle (why did so many of you seem to go that route?). As you watched, your not-bro leaned down to kiss her, and you figured she had to be another player, maybe Rose's mom? Whatever, this is probably what your Bro had been talking about in the last memory, him needing to go and help his friends. He did look like he was in a hurry, immediately rising after his corpse-smooch to put a bucket in this weird red box thing, then raising the box over his head. He seemed to hesitate for a second, pausing in his rush, before lowering the box with shaking arms over his head. Then there was a flash and  
no  
no  
_**no**_

You wrapped your arms around your stomach, doubling over and trying not to heave, trying your best to remember something, anything but this. Holy shit. Holy shit, he just cut off his head. _He just cut off his own fucking head_. And now his body was here, right beside you, blood pouring out of his severed neck, you thought a slit throat bled a lot, that was fucking _nothing_ , and oh god the smell, coating your tongue your mouth your throat, like your lungs were filling up with it and there's nothing you can do to stop it, you stupid goddamn punk, Terezi already got John killed once, what made you think you could trust her, what made you think she wasn't going to get you dead just as fast and fuck it burns, skin sliced open and spilling blood into empty air, trying to suck in breaths only to have them wheeze out of your brand new unsanctioned air-to-lungs shortcut, oh god, oh fuck, you were really going to die, you weren't supposed to die, only beta daves were supposed to die, _you're not supposed to die_

"Dude. Snap out of it." A hand settled on your back, familiar and unfamiliar, stroking up and down your spine. "Thought you said you could handle this shit, no need to lose your head over something like this." 

You smacked him as soon as the pun registered, but it did calm you down a little, enough to remember that you were dead, not dying. Your arms snuck out to wrap around his waist, ignoring his soft noise of surprise when you pulled him close, resting your head on his chest, because it ached too much, holding it just right so skin and tissue didn't go flapping about, head tilting crazily. The memory of a still-alive heart beat in his chest, and your breathing evened out to match its pace, until you finally felt safe enough to hazard a look up.

He was there, head and body and all, what looked like one of Rose's scarves wrapped around his neck, one arm holding you close, the other on the back of his head like something out of a damned anime. You stomach gave a sick little flip at the thought that maybe his head would wobble off, without his hand there.

"Sorry," you rasp out. "Bad memories." You give a laugh to show how much you don't care. It sets the pain on a slow burn and makes the open flesh at your throat ooze blood in the steady waves of a pulse you no longer have, soaking into your green felt suit. The room around you melts and shifts in silence, and when you look back up, you're on the roof of your apartment building, surrounded by miles and miles of water. Bro moves away from you, going to sit on the edge with the sun at his back, hand still steadying his head. You took in a breath, ocean salt and baking cement washing the scent of blood from your nostrils. You sat by him, the blood at our throat stopping, though the slit remained.

"So," he said, and you almost jumped, figuring this was just going to be silent bro-time. "I showed you mine."

You laughed, something closer to genuine that time, and he turned to give you a smile, correcting the beginnings of a head-tilt when it wobbled. "Shit Bro, maybe give a little warning next time, anyone ever tell you your memories feel real as shit?" He shrugged, and this time his head did fall off, caught before it tumbled off the edge but holy _hell_ that was freaky. He went to set it back on his shoulders, but you stopped him, hand light on his wrist, eyes flicking from the empty space above his neck to his actual face, seeking permission. 

You took his head in your hands, setting him on your lap, and he raised an eyebrow at you, body beside you gone stiff. You lifted his head to examine the wound, flesh ragged and still-bleeding, you'd have thought the sendificator would cauterize it or something, but no. No, it looked a lot like your throat did. A lot like the waist of that fish guy, whose torso had been eaten up and spat out by a chainsaw, mangled all to hell. A lot like the John who'd had his limbs literally ripped from his body, like the Jade who'd been bitten to death, like Rose who had been impaled with her own needles. 

He was really dead, and you don't know why, in a weird way, that made you a little happy, that he was mortal, just like anyone else.

"Why'd you do it?" you said, and you weren't sure why. It was fine to ask people how they died, but never why (it left you wide open for them to return the question). 

His body shrugged as his head mumbled, "Thought he'd kiss me back to life."

"His loss," you said. "I'd corpsesmooch the hell out of you." You don't know what seized you to do it, but you brought his head up to yours, squeezing your eyes shut and pressing your lips together for a second, two, three, before pulling back. You looked away before opening your eyes again, tips of your ears gone red. You couldn't decide if you should be embarrassed that you'd kissed him because he was your Bro, because he wasn't, or because you'd done it in such a pansy-assed way. 

His arms groped along your lap and you turned back to look at him, guiding his hands until they had ahold of his head, watching him lift it and settle it back on his neck. There was a sick squelching sound, and you had a feeling that somehow, he wasn't going to let it tumble off again unless he damn well wanted it to. 

"What about you?" he asked, and you couldn't stop it, the sudden plunge through Terezi's coin flip, your nap on your quest bed, waking up in time to have steel part skin, spilling your life down the front of your shirt. You panted, fingers twisted tight in your Bro's hair, slammed back into his memory of the two of you on the roof just as fast, the whole thing having taken less than a minute, relatively speaking. You swallowed, uncurling your fingers and pulling your hand back to yourself. You hadn't meant to show him that.

"Talk was bigger than my walk," you said. "I died as a way for this alien chick to prove a damn _point_." It came out more bitter than you meant for it to, but his hand finding yours, lacing your fingers together, was worth it.

"Think you've taken this irony shit a little too far, Bro," he said, and it made the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, him calling you that. 

"Whaddya mean?"

He smiled, thumb rubbing circles around your knuckle. "I got killed doing what you couldn't. You got killed doing what I should've."

"It'll drive you crazy, thinking about shit like that," you said. "The game just fucks us all over, in whatever way it deems most soul-destroying at any given moment."

He barked a laugh at that, squeezing your hand in his. You weren't sure what he thought was so funny, but it felt nice, being close to someone like you, but not you, someone whose death you had no part in, who had no part in yours, so you leaned against his side, giving him a squeeze back.

He broke the comfortable silence with the worst possible question. "Think my friends are alright?"

You tensed. "Dude."

You felt him shrug beside you and sighed, forcing yourself to relax. "Probably. You thought some guy would kiss you alive, right? He probably did. Just not _you_ you."

"Oh," he said.

"Welcome to the world of being doomed," you said, shoving down another twinge of bitterness that you hadn't been doomed, not really.

"Do I get a welcome party?" He asked, head shifting as he looked down at you.

"Just me," you said.

He smiled against your hair, and you wonder when he managed to get so close. A hand drifts up to your neck, and he's wrapping the long, loose end of the scarf around your throat, yarn scratchy against your opened flesh, warm in its confining quality. 

You put one of your hands over his, making him pause in his motions, twisting to look up at him. "You don't have to cover that up," you said. 

His mouth parted, sighing out a breath, tongue running over his lips, giving him time to formulate a response. "I'm not covering it up," he said. "I—it's something I used to do with Roxy. When I didn't want her to drift away."

Your ears went red again. "Oh."

You reached up your free hand, tucking the scarf tighter around his throat. "Wouldn't want to lose you," you said, voice soft.

He stared at you, the memory of seconds ticking by heavy and comfortable in the back of your mind. "No," he said finally. "Wouldn't want that."


End file.
